The ability to maintain friendships with a small number of people over a long period of time is more important for happiness than the ability to make many new friends easily. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

The ability to maintain friendships with a small number of people over a long period of time is more important for happiness than the ability to make many new friends easily. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Friendship contributes to one’s happiness. Recently, the question whether keep long-term friendships with a small number of people is more important for happiness than the ability to make numerous new friends easily triggers a heated discussion. My answer to this question is “yes”.

First of all, it may waste time to make many new friends. Undoubtedly, everyone’s time is limited and people are ought to cherish time and make good use of it. Imagine that, you were making one thousand new friends. What life would you live? You would consecutively use various social media to get in touch with people to widen your social circle. However, life is not all about making new friends and there are other things to pursue for happiness. For instance, the time saved from making new friends can be utilized to self-improving, laying a solid foundation for a brighter future bring happiness to people.

Secondly, old friends usually show stronger loyalty than newly-acquainted ones. That means, no matter what happens to you, they will stand by your side and provide you with support unconditionally. Nevertheless, this kind of friendship seldom occurs in the short-term relationship. The story of mine can be a perfect example to illustrate this point. Last year, when I’m at the hospital, two old friends of mine took care of me by turns and accompanied with me through the hard time while few new friends came to visit me. It is cleared that the long-term friendship is more reliable and the ability to maintain it is much more vital.

Though, the ability to make new friends is crucial for one person to gain new ideas and broaden views from different groups of people. Mostly, life is divided into several stages and each stage will have a brand new goal, which will need different skills. For example, in an architecture company, comprehensive skills are required, enabling architects to communicate with various people such as governors, sponsors and etc. However, compared with the ability to maintain long-term friendship, the ability to make new friends still plays a less significant role for one’s happiness.

To sum up, one’s happiness is consisted of diverse parts, which may include self-achievement, respect and etc. Moreover, I believe long-term friendship is of higher significance, making the ability to maintain long-term friendship with a small number of people much more important.